At its Wednesday meeting, the Undergraduate Senate (UGS) passed the Joint Bill to Amend Article V, Sections 8 and 9 of the Joint Bylaws of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). This bill will clarify the ASSU bylaws surrounding the election certification process.
The new proposed bylaws state that legislative bodies will have 14 days to adopt a motion to invalidate the election by a two-thirds vote. Otherwise, the election will be automatically certified. The motion must include a report on the grounds for invalidation, a category which the bill defines as including voter fraud, voter disenfranchisement and lack of compliance with the Constitution. If the motion passes, an election must be scheduled within 10 days, with the Constitutional Council having final authority if another election isn’t possible.
The bill now moves to the Graduate Student Council (GSC) for a vote.
The UGS also introduced the Bill to Amend the Undergraduate Senate Bylaws to Establish Governance Standards for Class Presidents and Amend Class President Election Provisions and heard a presentation from Deputy Chair Minji Cho ’28 on the bill.
In the presentation, Cho explained that despite the administration of class president elections by the ASSU, class presidents are currently not part of the ASSU. This bill would merge them into the ASSU, allowing the ASSU to establish bylaws for their responsibilities. Cho stated that the current lack of bylaws means that each new group of class presidents has to determine their responsibilities through word of mouth, unofficial documents or those who remember past protocol.
“This makes it harder for… administrators and frankly the entire student population to know exactly what to expect,” Cho said.
Under the new bylaws, class president slate size will be standardized to four across all class years. The responsibilities of class presidents are also formally defined, with goals to understand class-specific needs and coordinate with the UGS and the ASSU as a whole.
“These bylaws will exist to make sure elected representatives are staying engaged, and there is a basic level of accountability for these representatives,” said Cho.
Cho also noted the continuities — class presidents will still be advised by the Office of Student Engagement, receive funding from the same sources and have the same election timing.
The UGS also introduced the Joint Bill to Establish Proportional Funding and Equitable Cost-sharing for Student Activities Fee–supported Organizations. This bill would change funding for organizations funded by the student activities fee to be proportional to the number of undergraduate and graduate students in the organization, based on CardinalEngage numbers.
“In conversation with our funding chairs including Celeste [Angeline Vargas ’27], including Brion [Ye, first-year Ph.D. candidate] and Elena [Vasilache, fourth-year M.A. candidate], our GSC treasurers, we decided that from this year forward, the best way to fund joint student organizations would be a proportional system,” said UGS Chair David Sengthay ’26.
Sengthay noted that there has been opposition from some GSC members to the joint bill.
“We’re concerned that their anxieties about this joint bill are based in fear and speculation from misinformation online,” Sengthay said. He noted that there have been rumours that the graduate students’ fee will increase to $1,000, a number which he claimed is inaccurate.
ASSU Financial Manager Johann Sotelo said that the prospective fee increase for graduate students, based on annual grants from last year, would be $18 per year, and that students could expect a similar number for this year’s annual grants.
“There’s a ton of bureaucracy right now if you’re trying to program an event, and so this is the government’s opportunity to streamline [our] own process… to me it’s a no brainer,” said Associate Director of Student Organizations Pete Cerneka.